Easton officials honored two longtime educators and members of the community with a street in their name in the new Neston Heights public housing development.

The street, Jones Houston Way, leads to the newly refurbished clubhouse for the Boys & Girls Club of Easton.

It's fitting, friends and colleagues said, that the road named after Bill Houston and Alfredean Jones will guide young people to a place where they can become men and women.

"They're two of the finest men I know," said Ken Brown, an Easton City Council member. "I am a product of them"

Houston and Jones are two of the Easton Area School District's earliest black administrators and both sat on the Easton City Council.

Officials also showed off the completed first phase of the new development, which includes 56 rental units. Senior housing cottages are expected to be occupied by the end of the year, and the housing authority and developer are closing on the owner-occupied portion of the project by the end of the month.

All 56 units are occupied, and three tenants opened their doors Monday for tours.

Neston Heights, once a dangerous barracks-style development that rightfully conjured up all stereotypes of public housing, is now a pristine suburban neighborhood that speaks to the new national mindset toward public housing.

Public housing, Easton Housing Authority Director Gene Pambianchi said, "can be an asset and not a liability" and a first choice rather than a last resort.

"We are not just building a housing project but redeveloping a neighborhood," he continued.

Officials commented on the long road to bring about the HOPE VI project. The city applied several times before Delaware Terrace was finally accepted into the program in 2006.

"When you look around and remember what was here and what's been built in its place, it's extraordinary," state Rep. Robert Freeman said. "The phoenix rising from the ashes, you could say."